Town Square

Jennifer Bestor didn't know what to expect last month when she mailed a rather whimsical letter to billionaire Warren Buffet about her research on how Proposition 13 has shifted the state's property tax burden away from commercial land owners. His subsequent response has left the Menlo Park mother of a school-age son smiling -- and energized.

Posted by LVTfan (google it)
a resident of another community
on Apr 22, 2010 at 8:15 am

So have we now trivialized a matter of economic justice and treating everyone -- even homeowners -- as if we believed they were fundamentally equal -- into a nice joke about pushups and a proposal to ask commercial landlords (and, I suppose, triple net lease tenants, too?) to make a token charitable contribution to meeting the legitimate needs of the community.

Sad. Very sad.

There are a lot of people who are being subsidized by the provisions of Proposition 13, and a lot of others who are being forced to pay taxes on their purchases and their wages in order to make up some of the foregone public revenue from the most legitimate and just tax base, land value.

This damages the economy. It is unjust and stupid. California's colleges -- with only a few exceptions -- no longer teach economics effectively, so it isn't the fault of the students who in good faith sought answers there. (Someone expressed it as "neoclassical economists are rich people's useful idiots.") Many of those rich people's privileges are protected by this, and all you can talk about is a few "poor" widows. So you continue to endure a stupid and venial tax system, and all you seek to do is nibble at its leaves, rather than finding the root of the problem.

Keep nibbling, and farm out those pushups! You can entertain yourselves nicely! Don't make any radical changes; you might make a difference! Pretty soon, your own children will have graduated, and you will just be able to enjoy your "protection" under Prop 13, and it will be other people's children who suffer.